Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

Lately I was reading comments under a blog about the ineffectiveness of aikido. One person talked about "deadwood and less than compelling practitioners." Deadwood! That's the useless part, huh? The part that needs to be pruned away and tossed. Hmmm. I'm that person sitting in seiza, always thinking Sensei's comments are directed towards me even when they aren't, but here's the thing: I know some might see me as a less than compelling practitioner, and I choose to be no more compelling than I am. Here's another thing: effective technique isn't what matters. We'd been having this discussion/argument/wrangle in our dojo between the aikibunnies and the mashers. To be honest, our dojo is somewhere in the middle, and even our most extreme dojomates are middle of the roaders on the aikibunny-masher spectrum. Still, it's an age old conflict, one that manifests in many dojo and on many discussion boards. In our dojo the discussion wasn't exactly a male/female divide, but most of the women tended to see the issue one way, and most of the men tended to see it the other. The word "effective" was being hurled around. I'm bigger than the other women in our dojo and strongly put together, so I wasn't feeling manhandled as some others were, but I was dismayed when the issue came up at a black belt meeting and the initial reaction seemed to blame uke. I've been doing aikido 23 years and yes, I can put a nikyo pin on you that will cut off your airway. I can probably do a kaitenage that will break your nose and your shoulder and your elbow and, oh hell, your wrist too. I guess that's "effective" technique. But I have to go to work in the morning, and I know you do, too. I don't think people should get hurt on the mat. Nage's responsibility is that as his/her power increases, his/her sensitivity toward uke must increase, so nage can feel the right amount of power to apply and uke is not hurt. Now, I'm not going to claim that I'm above hitting a pressure point or two when someone sees little motivation to move. And as I get older, my favorite technique is nikyo. I even like that nasty sankyo where nage is holding only to uke's little finger. In fact, I like all the nasty pins. But if I'm doing one, I go slowly so uke has time to take the stretch and slap out. Uke gets to decide how far we go.

However, learning to sense and accommodate uke isn't just about "being nice" and taking care. Developing that sensitivity and ability to read "the other" (and ourselves) crucially benefits our own training. Years ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacques Payet Sensei for Aikido Today Magazine. Mr. Payet talked about being uchi deshi for Goza Shioda Sensei. He laughed as he told me about standing outside a door every night waiting for exactly the right moment to open the door for Sensei. He had to get the bath water the exact right temperature, and bring the rinse water in at just the moment Sensei wanted it. At first Mr. Payet felt lost and clueless; however, as time went on he developed the ability to know when to be where with what. He could relax and just "feel it." Most of us don't do that kind of training now; we have to develop these skills in ways such as breathing with the entire class during warm up exercises as we move in sync with everyone in the room and relaxing and reading uke with our bodies during technique.

I had a head start on this sort of training. My father suffered from mental illness, and I never knew what to expect from him. In order to be safe, I had to be able to "read" the air in a room. Is that mysticism? No, it is years of awareness and paying attention. And this type of awareness has kept me safe in other situations. When I was a flight attendant, one night I was an extra, which meant I travelled alone. In Pittsburgh I got into a van to go to the hotel, and the van driver exuded a frightening vibe. He started talking in great detail about a flight attendant who had been raped in New York, then said, "Flight attendants are the only type of woman who can satisfy a man sexually." I could feel that I needed to remain calm and show no fear or reaction whatsoever. He told me I had not even noticed that he had taken me off the main highway and he was now prepared to take me down a dirt road toward the top of a mountain. He explained that the city was very beautiful from here and he wanted to share the view with me. I sensed that although my assertions would not impress this man, he would respect that I already "belonged" to another man. "I'd love to see the view," I said. "But my husband is expecting me to be back at the hotel when he calls. We better just go straight to the hotel." I kept speaking normally to him and he took me to the hotel.

I wish I could claim that I handled the entire situation well. I did not. Shaking, I closed my hotel room door, locked all three locks, checked under the bed and in the bathroom, and called my husband and cried as he tried to convince me to notify the airline, the van company, and the police. Then I drank a glass of water, sat on the bed, and convinced myself I had over-reacted. That's probably not what the man meant at all. He hadn't actually touched me, and I wasn't hurt. Maybe I had read the situation all wrong. Maybe he really did just want to show me the beautiful view. I waited quite a while to report this man, and I hope no one else was endangered because I did not listen to what my body and my husband were telling me.

So, yes, when I started Aikido, I was a fearful, intimidated, little aikibunny. I had to learn to stand my ground and own my space. I've learned some valuable lessons from a masher or two. Really, I like to think they've learned a couple things from me, too.

We call our shihan in Japan every so often, and during our last conversation we told him about our aikibunny/masher discussion at the black belt meeting. "A common problem," he said. "A discussion most every dojo will have to have. I want you to practice accurate technique enjoyably."

So what's the difference between accurate and effective technique? Accurate means I have the correct hand/foot/body positions and good posture. I am connected to my center, my breath, and my uke and am using correct timing and miai, or I'm as close to all these ideals as I can get. Effective means the technique is going to work, regardless. If I have to crank or torque or muscle, by George, you are going where I want you to go. I have stopped doing aikido with you and am doing aikido (or something!) to you. I am no longer listening to your body and our connection; I am listening to my ego.

Personally, I dislike the notion that some folks are deadwood. All ukes are good ukes, and everyone brings something to the practice. I have little patience with aikidoka who only want to work out with the "best", most athletic ukes. We never know what our dojomates are overcoming to put themselves on the mat. The most physically talented are not always the ones to derive the greatest benefits from practice. I had a student whose aikido was not particularly beautiful. She struggled all semester with entering, posture, and pins. Sometimes she got so frustrated she cried and left the mat. But she always got back on. And at the end of class, she thanked me and told me this class had given her the courage to leave an abusive relationship. I could share many examples like hers. She could trust in a safe space where people take care of each other. Taking care of each other is more important than effective technique; however, we can all practice accurate technique enjoyably.

"The Mirror" is a collaborative column written by a group of women who describe themselves as:

We comprise mothers, spouses, scientists, artists, teachers, healers, and yes, of course, writers. We range in age from 30s through 50s, we are kyu ranked and yudansha and from various parts of the United States and styles of aikido. What we have in common is a love for budo that keeps it an integral part of our busy lives, both curiosity about and a commonsense approach to life and aikido, and an inveterate tendency to write about these explorations.

Susan, great article. I like the accurate aikido comment. I'm a 250lb ex power lifter with about 22 years of aikido and several years of xing yi. I can do effective aikido but it may be because I'm big and strong and training with friends. At 65 I know that I will not always be strong so my imagined "effectiveness" may go away, but accurate aikido, that I should be able to continue to work on. I've trained with folks like Dennis Hooker and i would aikido his aikido as accurate aikido. I can only hope to be "accurate" like he is.

Hey B, Sorry, I don't know how to address you. Anyway, thanks for your kind words. I wish I could claim to have coined any of the terms, but of course I did not. Still, for me, it helps to think about the difference between effective and accurate. And yes, I wouldn't mind being as accurate as Dennis Hooker Sensei, either.
Susan

Susan, great article. I like the accurate aikido comment. I'm a 250lb ex power lifter with about 22 years of aikido and several years of xing yi. I can do effective aikido but it may be because I'm big and strong and training with friends. At 65 I know that I will not always be strong so my imagined "effectiveness" may go away, but accurate aikido, that I should be able to continue to work on. I've trained with folks like Dennis Hooker and i would aikido his aikido as accurate aikido. I can only hope to be "accurate" like he is.

Again great article. Plus you gave me new words to use when I teach

Bruce, you are pretty darn accurate too
Susan, thank you for this. And, yes, the "accurate/effective" is a wonderful way of defining practice.

I hate the phrase "effective aikido", effective at what I often ask? what do you want aikido for? Most people tend to use this phrase to mean harder aikido, because they perceive that since it looks harder it must better in real life (tm), which I'm not sure is true.

I've never met an uke I didn't like, sure I've found some frustrating because they make me look bad I love that, it shows me what I need to work on and learn. Actually my favorite uke is that goon beginner who's all too strong, not moving or reacting "how they are supposed to", use them while you can they get a clue too quick and you loose that resource. We all love tossing about a good uke, but I learn more from ones that take more work. No such thing as deadwood in my opinion, everyone has something to offer and their own reasons to be there.

I wasn't sure where this was going at the beginning because I'm not real fond of the "aikibunnies", but by the end, I have to say this is a really excellent essay Susan! I think effectiveness is an important part of practice but what I'm thinking of as effective technique is really what you call accurate technique here. Really one of the best things on aikido I've read in a while. Thanks Janet for sharing it on facebook.

Thank you for that great article, Susan! I feel strongly that every training partner is an opportunity to work on things we need (which we oft times recognize after the fact), even if not necessarily what we want at the moment.
Thank you again! (And thank you too, Janet, for sharing it on Facebook!)

I think "aikibunny" has gotten to be like "blonde". It's a code word for "female". The presence of exceptions does not change this, only provides a weasling excuse for those who don't want to own their words. Perhaps the word should be retired from the discussion and another term found -- if, that is, a productive and civil discussion is what is wanted.

I think "aikibunny" has gotten to be like "blonde". It's a code word for "female". The presence of exceptions does not change this, only provides a weasling excuse for those who don't want to own their words. Perhaps the word should be retired from the discussion and another term found -- if, that is, a productive and civil discussion is what is wanted.

I'm a bit confused: on the one hand, you mention some kind of aim toward productive and civil discussion, while on the other, you present, without clear justification, an incontrovertible claim that one word means another word.

"Aikibunny" is obviously a stereotype. Like all stereotypes, it has its origin in truth, or at least partial truths, and like all stereotypes, it eventually outlives its usefulness. When we're trying to understand something complex (in this case, other people's approach to aikido), we generalize and simplify so we can start to wrap our minds around it. There's nothing wrong with these as initial steps towards understanding...but we have to be willing to take it beyond that, to fill in the details that are omitted or overlooked in our first simple picture. If we fail to do so, our generalization becomes a stereotype, with as much falsehood as truth in it, and our simple understanding becomes instead simplistic, omitting the inconvenient facts that don't fit our nice neat picture.

Now, if I may, it seems as though you may be using an overly simplistic generalization for the various usages people have meant for the term "aikibunny" -- a term which usually seems to refer to a style of practice at one extreme on the spectrum of gentle to harsh ("masher" being the other extreme), and which has no particular gender bias.

I think "aikibunny" has gotten to be like "blonde". It's a code word for "female". The presence of exceptions does not change this, only provides a weasling excuse for those who don't want to own their words. Perhaps the word should be retired from the discussion and another term found -- if, that is, a productive and civil discussion is what is wanted.

I disagree with your assertion. Historically it was and is often used disparagingly towards Ki Society-based training methods AND in our not so distant Aikiweb history was almost exclusively used to disparage a man posting very non-martial (and non-accurate!) techniques. Never have I ever seen it, heard it or used it as a gender-based term.

Thanks, Matthew. I guess I should be paying Janet an agent's fee. Yeah, we all want to work with those smooth as butter ukes who make us look good. I want to be one of those! But you're right. We often learn the most with the ukes we find most difficult.
Susan

Mary,
The way I've understood "aikibunny" is to describe those who fall down before you even touch them and want no force used at all. (Yes, I have been guilty as charged.) Often, these folks are so fearful about falling, getting hurt, or hurting others that they barely hold on and fall before being thrown so that they are totally in charge of where, when, and how they fall. I looked behind me before every back fall to be sure I wasn't falling on anything until I was a brown belt, which unfortunately often caused my neck to hurt. Probably more of these type students are female just because they may not have had experiences falling, but I have had plenty of male students I would describe this way too, just as I have had both male and female students who were more comfortable in the masher role.

I had hoped to start a productive and civil discussion, and I wasn't trying to offend when I used language shortcuts. But perhaps I have.
Susan

I don't know if the following is exactly right or useful (I am pretty low on the amount of training compared to most everyone here), but a thought hit me a little later after reading this, so, in the spirit of wondering aloud for whatever it might be worth:
I kind of like the Bunny-Masher spectrum idea and have always considered myself to be more on the bunny side of things. To my mind it's analogous to what I've been taught about Aikido being a sort of communication process, having a kind of "listening" and "speaking" mindset. The Listening/receiving aspect, as I understand it, would be reflective of focusing on being sensitive and making sense of what's coming in. The Speaking/delivering aspect would be reflective of making aite move in some specific way (making sense of affecting power outward). Neither is exactly the whole thing and we all employ both to some degree, though we all have our own preferences based on personal goals and proclivities. The "trick" I suppose would be in how we combine the two aspects, and I would guess this might have something to do with the nature of practice as uke and nage. As nage, we're still "listening" to what's happening, just as when uke, we're still trying to issue power on some level. Over time, hopefully our ability to match these two aspects turns them into a kind of singular quality, which is neither doing nor not-doing, but a balanced happening, if that makes sense.
Also, I think labels are very tricky because we all inject our own semantics, but they do have their utility. As long as we can understand the intended meaning, I think, as Pete the Cat would say, "it's all good."

Hmmm. I liked the bunny/masher spectrum idea too because it sets up diametrically opposed sides of the argument quickly, but then if we don't define the terms the same way, the argument isn't clear. Like you, Matthew, I see myself more toward the bunny end, and I don't think of that word as perjorative. I would rather my technique fail than hurt someone, and I am OK with someone thinking I am "less than compelling." But obviously, the words I chose to define the argument can be charged, something I really didn't think much about before this discussion. Mary M, I'm wondering if this sentence, " The presence of exceptions does not change this, only provides a weasling excuse for those who don't want to own their words" refers to something I said or if they refer to something I missed?
Susan

Hmmm. I liked the bunny/masher spectrum idea too because it sets up diametrically opposed sides of the argument quickly, but then if we don't define the terms the same way, the argument isn't clear. Like you, Matthew, I see myself more toward the bunny end, and I don't think of that word as perjorative. I would rather my technique fail than hurt someone, and I am OK with someone thinking I am "less than compelling." But obviously, the words I chose to define the argument can be charged, something I really didn't think much about before this discussion. Mary M, I'm wondering if this sentence, " The presence of exceptions does not change this, only provides a weasling excuse for those who don't want to own their words" refers to something I said or if they refer to something I missed?
Susan

I think one of the most compelling things about high-level aiki principals is that it largely transcends the "bunny/masher" dichotomy that seems to be the norm in most schools. Being able to negate and turn a partner's force back against him opens up many doors. Soft power, when properly trained is far more effective than hard power will ever be. So you can be yourself, at peace, and not wanting it harm your partner while at the same time totally controlling him. This is the promise of aikido.

I agree, Joshua. I have seen aikido transform frightened students into more centered, confidant people both on and off and mat. (I put myself in this category.) I have also seen it "gentle down" others and help them become more sensitive to the world around them. I love your sentence about "the promise of aikido."
Susan

Mary,
The way I've understood "aikibunny" is to describe those who fall down before you even touch them and want no force used at all. (Yes, I have been guilty as charged.) Often, these folks are so fearful about falling, getting hurt, or hurting others that they barely hold on and fall before being thrown so that they are totally in charge of where, when, and how they fall. I looked behind me before every back fall to be sure I wasn't falling on anything until I was a brown belt, which unfortunately often caused my neck to hurt. Probably more of these type students are female just because they may not have had experiences falling, but I have had plenty of male students I would describe this way too, just as I have had both male and female students who were more comfortable in the masher role.

I think this is a common fallacy even among those who know better: to assume that by virtue of his gender, a man is likely to have fighting skills or experiences. Certainly I don't think that the average man has any experience falling (where would they get that?).

Quote:

Susan Dalton wrote:

I had hoped to start a productive and civil discussion, and I wasn't trying to offend when I used language shortcuts. But perhaps I have.

I know you weren't trying to offend. That's the thing about loaded language, though -- it creeps into common usage, associates itself with existing biases, and influences thinking even when used without intent. This is why I will not use the b word. But most people are not open to that discussion. Leaving gender out of it, I don't think anyone can deny that the term "aikibunny" is pejorative and used disparagingly, and I don't think pejorative terms are helpful in a discussion where the intention is to explore the potential value of a range of approaches. When we begin by pejoratively labeling the other -- or even (especially?) ourselfes -- we start from a perspective of skepticism that the approach has anything of value. Maybe, as Mary Eastland says, we should chuck the labels. When a label gets to the point where people have long since stopped really thinking about what it means, it's kind of lost its usefulness anyway, as is the case with all unexamined language.

last time i had bunny it tasted like chicken. i wondered if aikibuny tasted the same. lets face it, we, human (you aliens can ignore this), like to label things. it's a need to put order into chaos (chaos always win, because it better organized). we called night - night, day - day, coffee - coffee, tea - tea, chicken - chicken, bunny - chicken,.... and so on and so forth. we have label for stuffs we believed effective, and ineffective; accurate, inaccurate; aiki, non-aiki (go ahead and start another war); and so on.

me, i kinda like aikibunny, because i often run away from fight. however, when i have no other option, i would rip the other bugger leg off (much more picturesque than ripping arm) and beat him/her/it with it.

personally, i advocate for calling aikiemu. it rolls right off the tongue. the other term i also favor is aikiyak or aikiyeti.